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Astana wades into pro peloton disc brake debateAstana brakes - 1.jpg

Astana wades into pro peloton disc brake debate

Shock! Slowing down wheels by putting your hand on the tyres won't maim you for life
by Mat Brett
Thu, Mar 09, 2017 16:02
8

This whole disc brake versus rim brake in the peloton safety issue has now got even more ridiculous with Astana demonstrating that you’ll suffer no injuries if you stop a wheel by putting your hand on the tyre… as if anyone thought that you would!

This is a riposte to the Team Katusha Alpecin’s communications manager Philippe Maertens showing on Twitter yesterday that you can stop a fast-spinning disc brake rotor by putting your hand on it gently – which everyone with even a vague interest in the subject knew already, didn’t they? 

We linked to this video demonstrating the fact on 27 February 2017, for example.

Astana Proteam said on Twitter, somewhat sarcastically: “@philmaertens Experiment of the year! Are the rim brakes so dangerous? Let’s try!”

 

As we reported nearly a year ago, Movistar’s Fran Ventoso claimed that he was injured by a disc brake rotor in the 2016 Paris-Roubaix race, and Team Sky’s Owain Doull recently said that a disc brake rotor “cut straight though” his shoe. 

Fran Ventoso.jpg

However, the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) commissioned a report into the Ventoso incident that involved an accident reconstruction. Its ‘expert’s report’, dated 12 May 2016, concluded that Ventoso’s injuries could not have been caused by a disc brake rotor.

Check out our story: Have disc brakes really led to injuries in peloton? 

The WFSGI also says that the recent Owain Doull incident wasn't related to disc brakes. 

The debate between the WFSGI, the UCI and the CPS (Cyclistes Professionnel Associés, the organisation that represents professional cyclists and is often termed the 'riders' union’, centres on whether or not the introduction of disc brakes in their current form creates a new hazard for riders over and above those that already exist.

The CPA has said that it is very concerned that the disc brake trial has resumed “before some appropriate test were conducted on the risks to which the riders are exposed in the event of accidental contact with the discs.”​

Have the Katusha Alpecin and Astana Twitter videos moved that debate forward? You decide!

A year into this debate, how about the UCI undertakes a series of accident reconstructions with bikes fitted with rim brakes and with bikes fitted with disc brakes, maybe a worst case scenario, using forces associated with crashing? Then we can have some actual facts and everyone can calm down. Just an idea!

Astana
Katusha
Disc Brake
Mat Brett

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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8 comments

Avatar
Rider42 | 7 years ago
0 likes

Yep. My old music teacher had lost half a finger from when he was just changing the gearing on his track bike and got his finger in between the chain and chainring.

Avatar
harman_mogul | 7 years ago
2 likes

Worth mentioning that the fixed cog of a track bike (or hipster sled) certainly can cause injury, and not just in a crash (of which there are many in track riding) — the young daughter of a clubmate of mine cut a slice off the top of her finger. (Happily it will regrow, mostly.) Of all the ways you might get injured riding a bike, getting cut or burned by a brake disc has very low odds indeed.

Here's what an exposed chainring can do ta ya in a fall...
 

Avatar
DaveE128 | 7 years ago
5 likes

This makes no sense.

Argument seems to be going:

A: X is really dangerous!

B: No, X is not dangerous - look it can't hurt you! (demonstrates)

A: No, X is really dangerous - look Y doesn't hurt you either! (demonstrates).

Astana seem to be implying that the fact there is even a discussion about whether discs injure people mean they shouldn't be used. That is a seriously dumb argument and would sit well with advocates of ducking stools.

Avatar
Jackson replied to DaveE128 | 7 years ago
2 likes
DaveE128 wrote:

This makes no sense.

Argument seems to be going:

A: X is really dangerous!

B: No, X is not dangerous - look it can't hurt you! (demonstrates)

A: No, X is really dangerous - look Y doesn't hurt you either! (demonstrates).

Astana seem to be implying that the fact there is even a discussion about whether discs injure people mean they shouldn't be used. That is a seriously dumb argument and would sit well with advocates of ducking stools.

Have a read of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

Avatar
stuartanderson | 7 years ago
0 likes

As usual, Astana are a bunch of dicks!! Put a  body part next to a heated up brake disc and press it in to see what happens................

Avatar
joules1975 replied to stuartanderson | 7 years ago
2 likes
stuartanderson wrote:

As usual, Astana are a bunch of dicks!! Put a  body part next to a heated up brake disc and press it in to see what happens................

No-one seems to be arguing about whether a very hot disc brake can burn skin, cause it can, just like a chainring can punture skin and a spoke (especially bladed) slice into it.

 

The argument is whether a disc can slice through stuff, including skin/flesh. To which the anwser, in tests at least, appears to be not really.

All the tests where a rotor really makes a mess of something are from what I've seen been tests where a rider is powering the wheel maxed out in top gear throughout the test, whereas in a crash, the wheel isn't powered, and is more like the tests seen by the Trek and other mechanics, where the wheel rotation is stopped through pressure of flesh onto disc, and where no injuries occur.

 

Avatar
STiG911 replied to stuartanderson | 7 years ago
0 likes
stuartanderson wrote:

As usual, Astana are a bunch of dicks!! Put a  body part next to a heated up brake disc and press it in to see what happens................

There's literally no chance of that happening in a real-world situation. Doing it while a bike is static - possibly, but there's more chance of injury through a 'speed impact' into a disc, just like any other bike part.

The other thing is people focusing on 'the hot disc' - crap. The amount of holes and vents in a disc mean it retains very little heat while the bike is moving, particularly because of the air passing over and through it, which is the main reason discs are so effective at stopping a bike in the first place.

If the disc was solid, then there would be something to say about it but it's not, so there isn't.

Avatar
SingleSpeed replied to STiG911 | 7 years ago
1 like
STiG911 wrote:
stuartanderson wrote:

As usual, Astana are a bunch of dicks!! Put a  body part next to a heated up brake disc and press it in to see what happens................

There's literally no chance of that happening in a real-world situation. Doing it while a bike is static - possibly, but there's more chance of injury through a 'speed impact' into a disc, just like any other bike part.

The other thing is people focusing on 'the hot disc' - crap. The amount of holes and vents in a disc mean it retains very little heat while the bike is moving, particularly because of the air passing over and through it, which is the main reason discs are so effective at stopping a bike in the first place.

If the disc was solid, then there would be something to say about it but it's not, so there isn't.

 

No Honestly they do get very hot, I've seen someone get branded by a rotor after a long welsh MTB descent.

I've no idea why any of this is any issue whatsoever when the elepahnt in the room is quite clearly the black, abrasive material that does a good job of removing vast percenatges of your skin surface area when you hit it at 55kmh wearing nothing more than your underwear.

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